


Tyranny

by pallasite



Series: Behind the Gloves [163]
Category: Babylon 5, Babylon 5 & Related Fandoms
Genre: Analysis, Backstory, Bester Was Right, Bigotry & Prejudice, Canon Compliant, Commentary, Constitutional law, Criminal Law, Critique, Discrimination, Episode: s01e06 Mind War, Episode: s01e16 Eyes, Episode: s02e07 A Race Through Dark Places, Episode: s03e06 Dust to Dust, Episode: s04e14 Moments of Transition, Episode: s04e16 Exercise of Vital Powers, Episode: s04e17 The Face of the Enemy, Episode: s04e20 Endgame, Episode: s04e21 Rising Star, Episode: s05e07 Secrets of the Soul, Episode: s05e13 The Corps is Mother the Corps is Father, Episode: s05e18 The Fall of Centauri Prime, Essays, Fix-It, Gen, How Normals Get Away With Assault, How Normals Get Away With Murder, Law, People are not devices, Psi Corps, Response to a JMS Usenet Post, Rules of Evidence, Subvert All The Things, Telepath Law (Babylon 5), The Earth Alliance Caste System, The Earth Alliance Justice System Is Broken, The Psi Corps tag is mine, This is the book you've wanted since the '90s, Worldbuilding, double standards, telepaths
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-16
Updated: 2020-03-16
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:40:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23100343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pallasite/pseuds/pallasite
Summary: At the end ofThe Psi Corps Trilogy(a 100% series according to JMS), Bester faces a war crimes trial in the Hague and is convicted, after a rushed trial with weak legal representation.This project stands as Bester's defense: legally, socially and historically. By providing readers with the "rest of the story," with a nuanced presentation of facts and events, I demonstrate that canon is misleading, and the truth is not as it seems.Sometimes, it's the complete opposite of what you've been told.This essay sums up the project so far.The prologue ofBehind the Glovesishere- please read!
Series: Behind the Gloves [163]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/677654
Kudos: 9





	Tyranny

**Author's Note:**

> New to _Behind the Gloves_? What is this series? Where are the acknowledgements, table of contents and universe timelines? See [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10184558/chapters/22620590).
> 
> If you like _Behind the Gloves_ and would like to send me an email, I can be reached at counterintuitive at protonmail dot com. Do you have questions? Would you like to tell me what you like about this project? Email me!
> 
> I also have an [ask blog](https://behind-the-gloves.tumblr.com/), a [writing blog](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/pallasite-writes), and a "P3 life" Tumblr [here](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/p3-life) with funny anecdotes. :)

I recently wrote two lengthy posts about how normals get away with violence against telepaths. If you haven't read them yet, they are found [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23024476) (Part 1) and [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23047528) (Part 2).

It boils down to a few key points:

  * Normals cover for each other, protecting their violent and abusive friends and colleagues;
  * Telepaths are legally banned from holding office, serving on juries, or practicing law;
  * Telepaths are not fully "people" under the law (e.g. they are legally classified at times as "devices", or as the embodiment of a government agency);
  * Telepaths are legally prohibited from exercising political speech;
  * The entirety of relevant Earth Alliance law was designed to protect normals _from_ telepaths, not the other way around



The evidentiary rule excluding scans from in criminal cases appears on its face to be about maintaining "fairness" (and who could be against "fairness?"), but under the surface lurks a darker reality: that this exclusion shields normals from the legal consequences of assaulting, abusing and murdering telepaths (keeping them in their "place").

In my essays above, Part 1 explains what the "exclusionary rule" means in constitutional and criminal law (including the doctrine of the "fruit of the poisonous tree"), using a canon case for illustration. Part 2 discusses the in-universe history and origin of the rule, and provides further illustration.

Two years ago, I wrote a series of essays on law, including the meaning of [due process](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14677659) (a term thrown around a lot in canon, but doesn't mean what JMS thinks it means), and how normals ended up with the unassailable [right not to be scanned](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14681790) (unlike telepaths). The links to the seven relevant legal background essays are contained in those links. In sum, the Earth Alliance established one set of rules for most cases, but established a separate set of rules for telepaths (as suspects, as witnesses, etc.).

Of special significance here is the evidentiary rule excluding scans from normal court cases (both civil and criminal, though only criminal cases are discussed in canon). This "exclusionary rule" certainly comes up _often_ \- from what I've counted, it's mentioned in some form in seven episodes, with eleven additional references in the _Psi Corps Trilogy_ and another I found in one of the semi-canon comics. (A few times in the books it's even referenced _wrong_ , granting to telepaths the right not to be scanned that only applies to normals!) From this frequency in canon, we know the rule is supposed to be really important. No other point of law - _any law_ \- is mentioned so many times as this rule.

But its legal basis is a moving target. Every time I try to pin down a canonical (and coherent) legal basis for it - 5th amendment right against self-incrimination (what JMS mixes up with "due process")? 4th amendment protection from illegal search and seizure? Hearsay? "Spectral evidence" (not a real rule)? Something else? - it adopts a completely different legal rationale. What creature is this rule - constitutional law, statutory law, case law, the rules of evidence of the Earth Alliance courts, or something else? It keeps finding new rationales for its existence.

It's a [crumbly cookie](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23047528).

Where it comes from isn't supposed to matter, only that it's _essential!_

There is no coherent or consistent legal rationale here, because it's not "logic" that's behind it, but _fear_ , and _social dominance_. Telepaths constitute a [lower "caste"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17318228) \- and you _cannot ever_ allow a low-caste person to convict a high-caste person of a crime. What caste-based society would ever allow the oppressed to testify against their oppressors? Allow the "untouchable" race to testify against the superior race? That would be CHAOS! That would be TYRANNY!

Caste systems always justify themselves, legally, socially, and _morally_. All paths are circular, no matter what the facts are, or even the internal contradictions. Canon never uses the word "caste" in reference to the Earth Alliance (only to refer to the Minbari), perhaps because "caste" could connote something negative, whereas in the Earth Alliance, this social organization is supposed to be _positive!_ It's _necessary!_ It's even _the only way things could ever be, without society falling apart!_

Yes, it's a caste system.

Here is [an article](http://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/society/principal-characteristics-of-caste-system-in-india-essay/4088) about the traits of the caste system as it existed in India. Obviously these two cultures are different, but if we examine the characteristics of a caste society from 10,000 feet, we have, in some way, most of the major elements: segmental division of society (yes), hierarchy (yes), endogamy (yes), hereditary status (yes), hereditary occupation (yes), restriction on food and drink (not directly - this comes about indirectly because gloves make it challenging to eat certain foods in public), social segregation (yes - see the laws requiring telepaths to dress differently in public to identify them, and the laws that restrict where telepaths may live, go to school, etc.), the concept of "pollution" (yes - see telepaths required by law to wear gloves to make them untouchable, see the references to "dirty telepaths", "stinking mindfuckers", etc.), caste laws (yes), taboos (a taboo against telepathy in general, which requires "all these laws and rules" to protect society from it)... and so on.

Returning now to the exclusionary rule, a certain JMS Usenet post is highly illustrative. The original question asked by a viewer seems to have disappeared, but JMS' response remains.

JMS wrote in JMSNews on Usenet (1/25/94):

 _**Re:** _ **_the Psi Corps...let's have a moment of logic for a moment. Does anyone here think that the Judicial System will, for a *moment*, let another government agency come into their courts with pronouncements of guilt or innocence? Lawyers wouldn't have it, judges wouldn't have it, the Supreme Court would rule against it. Also, please remember that the Corps is viewed with some measure of suspicion by the rest of the government. As you'll see in the course of the series. They aren't perceived automatically as the Good Guys."_ **

  * "let another government agency": Here it is, in black and white - telepaths in the Corps are "a government agency", not individual human witnesses. Remember this - EVERYTHING teeps say or do in public life is a reflection on the Corps as a whole. (I've told you about this [before](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10751193/chapters/23837298#workskin).) Every public act is, by definition, undertaken in the name of, and under the auspices of the Corps.
  * Under the law, a telepath not in the Corps can't EVER testify about a scan (see _Rising Star_ ), but here, a telepath in the Corps isn't seen as a human witness, either - he or she is part "scanning device" and part representative of an (untrustworthy) "government agency". In this context, TELEPATHS ARE GOVERNMENT PROPERTY.



The upshot here is that since telepaths can't testify about what they've observed telepathically without both 1) the consent of the relevant normal _and_ 2) corroborating physical evidence, only normals who both are innocent, and already have strong cases, would allow a telepath to scan them and admit it into evidence.

  * "with pronouncements of guilt or innocence": Dishonest! Admitting testimony into evidence (testimony that the jury can believe or disbelieve) is not a "pronouncement" of guilt or innocence any more than first-hand testimony (e.g. an eyewitness' "pronouncement" that he or she saw the defendant commit the crime). Unless telepaths aren't people! ...Oh wait.
  * "the Corps is viewed with some measure of suspicion by the rest of the government. ... They aren't perceived automatically as the Good Guys." No shit.



**_"You MUST set up checks and balances, and policies. You can't say, "Okay, a telepath can scan sometimes, but not others, with some people, but not others." The law is a defined creature. A telepath *may not* scan someone accused of a crime, and have that as admissible evidence. A telepath *may* scan a victim who is unable to remember the events of a crime, BUT...that is not admissible in its own terms, it must then be bolstered with actual, physical evidence. Even an eyewitness testimony can be challenged, and hearsay evidence is open to challenge as well, there are *already* limitations on second-party testimony."_ **

  * "Checks and balances." You realize that this is the US Constitution's way of _limiting_ _the power of the government_ by distributing it to equal branches - not, as here, the rationale of the _one world super-government_ for keeping .1% of the population locked in a permanent underclass status? (We must keep this .1% down! Because "checks and balances"!)
  * And no, it's not about "checks and balances on the Evil Psi Corps!" because as I already pointed out, these restrictions on telepath testimony [long predated the Corps](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23047528), and possibly existed even since the time telepath registration began, around 2117. Nice try. (See? The rationale keeps shifting!)
  * "You can't say, 'Okay, a telepath can scan sometimes, but not others, with some people, but not others.'" And why not? Isn't that exactly what a warrant system is all about - a formal, legal system that allows the police to search a suspect's house or possessions, _sometimes_ , but not other times? And only to search _some people_ , not everyone (also known as "probable cause")? What does "the law is a defined creature" even mean here? How is this a legal basis for _anything?_ This makes as much sense as saying that because the law is a "defined creature", police must have the right to search all people at all times for any reason at all, or to search no one ever, no matter what - so obviously, the latter!
  * "Even an eyewitness testimony can be challenged, and hearsay evidence is open to challenge as well, there are *already* limitations on second-party testimony." Yes, eyewitness testimony can be challenged with other testimony or evidence, but it's _admitted_ , and he's arguing that this testimony can't be admitted _at all_. That's DIFFERENT. And yes, hearsay evidence is open to challenge as well, but there are many exceptions, and these rules and exceptions differ from country to country. This isn't some universal set of rules that's set in stone. Even in the US, there are exceptions to the hearsay rule: an eclectic series of (possibly out-dated) exceptions that we're stuck with for historical reasons. (And that's what's on paper, not the real world!) In the end, even "by the book", some "hearsay" _is admissible_ (through the exceptions). There's no reason that courts in a different time or place couldn't decide on a different series of rules and exceptions. (And legal systems all over the world do, in fact, [treat this issue differently](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearsay), and also treat criminal and civil cases differently.)
  * Assuming the basis for the telepathy exclusion rule is that it is hearsay (which is contradicted in canon every time they give a different rationale), then why, from a _legal standpoint alone_ , can't there be a broad (or narrow) "telepath exception?" These same Psi Corps telepaths are trusted in business settings to monitor truth and lies, aren't they?
  * Oh right, because this isn't really about legal principles - the laws exist to support and justify the underlying caste system.



_**"Allowing the Psi Corps to function within a criminal court setting is one step removed from tyranny, and a government controlled court. If you actually look at the *reality* of it...it wouldn't happen. And that is the position we're taking with our series. Is it debateable? Of course it's open to debate. We like fostering debate. Is everything fair? No, it's not, just as in life. But as someone said (actually, the person looking on over my shoulder as I type this), it's my show...."** _

  * The courts are actually a branch of the government. Civics 101. I think what he means is that telepaths literally ARE a separate branch of government, because everything they say or do in public life represents the Corps (a regulatory agency technically under the executive branch), and so to allow telepaths to testify against normals without the consent of those normals (and corroborating evidence) wouldn't just be a caste-inversion, but would create a _constitutional crisis_ by giving the executive branch too much power over the courts.
  * This doesn't make sense to me, however. We're just talking about testimony, not "control over the court". (Telepaths don't control _shit_.) The all-normal jury can choose not to believe testimony of any witness, and if the jury feels the telepath is lying, they would still be free to disregard the testimony. JMS here is more offering a (new) argument for why telepaths can't be judges or sit on juries - because telepaths represent a separate branch of government! (But of course they have to be registered with the government, because that's the only way to keep them off juries and out of the practice of law! And around we go in circles.)
  * "It wouldn't happen." Oh hell no. As I said above, telepaths constitute a lower "caste" - and you _cannot ever_ allow a low-caste person to convict a high-caste person of a crime. What caste-based society would ever allow the oppressed to testify against their oppressors? Allow the "untouchable" race to testify against the superior race? That would be CHAOS! That would be TYRANNY!
  * "If you actually look at the _**reality**_ of it..."



Yes, what an excellent idea! Let's take a look at the _**reality**_ of it, shall we? Since you mentioned "tyranny"...

How often do normals assault or murder telepaths, and face no consequences under Earth Alliance law?

Let's see!

\-----

From Bester's trial, when he takes the stand ( _Final Reckoning_ , p. 242):

“One hundred and fifty-eight years ago, the existence of telepaths was known to almost no one. One hundred and fifty-seven years ago, it became common knowledge thanks to an article in the New England Journal of Medicine. By the end of that year, eighteen thousand telepaths were dead. No war was declared by any government. They were killed one at a time, they were killed en masse and buried in pits, they were aborted when DNA testing revealed what they were as fetuses.”

“Mr. Bester, I’m sure we all know the history.”

_**Do you, though?** _

  1. Canon describes the violence against telepaths as starting with the massacres of 2115, not because of anything that any telepaths really did to hurt anyone else, but simply because of what they now represent. (“'It's startin'," Lee said. He turned up the sound. '...shot in Jakarta today. The suspect claimed that the victim was a telepath who had cheated him at poker. Several unsubstantiated reports of similar attacks have surfaced in the last hour.'" "'...only hours after a vidcast on the new report in the New England Journal of Medicine. He claimed his lover was a telepath who drove him insane...' And from a town in Mexico: '... apparently in response to the alarmist reaction of Senator Ledepa Koya to a recent journal article alleging proof of extrasensory perception. No deaths are reported, though one man was critically wounded...' The screen began splitting, then recording what it couldn't show. The reports increased, ten, thirty - in less than an hour it was over a hundred.") ( _Dark Genesis_ , p. 14) _**Consequences? No. The normals who orchestrated it just got more powerful for it.**_
  2. It got much worse. "Vindicated? How can I feel vindicated by the deaths of more than ten thousand people? The massacre Wednesday in Shanxi? The bombing in Utah? [The rioting in Chicago](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10413966/chapters/23010714#workskin) \- the spacings in Armstrong?" ( _Dark Genesis_ , p. 31) _**Consequences? No.**_
  3. July, 2117. Tabloids across Earth run sensationalist stories falsely accusing telepaths of being cheaters and rapists, of being dangerous to normals, of raping girls and abusing those under their care. The DiPeso show, one of the most popular talk/comedy shows on Earth, with "upwards of six billion viewers" live ( _Dark Genesis_ , p. 49) and billions more recorded, echoes this sentiment, with the star (their Johnny Carson, basically) warming his audience up with, "'...so he says, how _does_ a telepath feed a dog? And I said pretty well, if you grind him up fine enough!'" (p. 45) "[DiPeso] sipped his martini languidly as the crowd howled. There were a few boos, but it was mostly of the 'what a bad joke' variety." ( _Id._ ) _**Consequences? No.**_
  4. Moments later, he features some "representative" telepaths on his show. One is a thirteen-year-old telepath boy named Stephen, “[beaten within an inch of his life](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10324169/chapters/22823876) and left to die on the streets of Edinburgh.” Consequences for his attackers? _**Hell no.**_
  5. Another is a four-year-old telepath girl named Constance, who “watched her whole family slaughtered execution style… shot, hacked with a machete, and left for dead. We found her under the corpse of her mother.” Consequence for her attackers? _**Hell no.**_
  6. In 2148, IPX hires a business telepath to monitor an illegal deal, [and then kills him](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17308712). Does anyone go to prison for it? _**Hell no!**_ The Corps couldn't even prosecute if it wanted to, because "the rules" would never allow them to get any of the evidence of murder into court. This is explicitly pointed out in the text.
  7. In early 2156, normal townsfolk in Chiapas, Mexico [locked a hundred telepaths in a church and set it on fire](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13844946), killing everyone inside. Did anyone go to prison for it? _**Hell no!**_ The Earth Alliance covered it up, declared that the hundred telepaths had committed suicide "in protest of registration", and used this lie to bolster the foundering Earth Alliance.
  8. When the Centauri landed in April 2156, "out of all of humanity, one group was suddenly elevated to a new status of persecution." ( _Dark Genesis_ p. 118). As if the above was a bed of rose petals? "When it was discovered that the Centauri - and they other races they spoke of - also had telepaths, many on Earth suddenly suspected Human telepaths of being part of some sinister alien design, perhaps of being aliens themselves. Suspected of acting as spies, saboteurs, and agents of cultural subversion, telepaths were once again subjected to levels of violence not seen since the horrific year of 2115. [This led to] much bitter loss of life." ( _Id._ ) Again, telepaths were slaughtered, but because of anything they did, but because of what they represent. Did anyone go to prison for it? _**Gee, they sure never say so!**_
  9. In an undated incident around 2156, in New Zealand (a country previously known for its tolerance of telepaths, and which had never "registered" them), a mob [attacked a church](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12132348) "and burned it. They took all the priests who were teeps, and they took [Ms. Chastain's] grandmother, and they tied heavy weights on all of them and dropped them in the ocean." ( _Deadly Relations_ , p. 15) Did anyone go to prison for it? _**They sure never say so!**_ (And if this happened in a "tolerant country", what do you think happened in the _intolerant_ countries?)



Oh, then there's the slavery and sex trafficking.

  1. Between 2187 and 2188, a young Psi Cop named [Claude Heckman](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10841091) goes undercover in the international pharmaceutical company Rentech. The Corps has discovered that Rentech is in the business of trafficking telepath children and young adults into slavery (including sex slavery) across the world, even transporting the kidnapped youth in company trucks. He spends a year collecting evidence on the company, and discovers the criminality goes right to the top, but is he able to stop it? Is the ring shut down? Is there any justice for the trafficked children? Does anyone go to prison for it? _**Hell no!**_
  2. Talia's grandmother, Jenny Winters, was born in 2176 in Vermont. Her mother was an unregistered telepath, and her father was a normal. When he left the family, she took Jenny on the run, and worked as a rogue telepath conducting illegal scans, first in India, then for a company in Amazonia - [till they murdered her](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10867419). Did anyone go to prison for it? _**Hell no!**_
  3. The company sold then-ten-year-old Jenny [into sex slavery herself](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10867419), to a wealthy man named Achilles Robert Farmer, who repeatedly raped her and abused her in other ways. Did he ever go to prison for it? _**Hell no!**_



And then there are the telepathy suppressing drugs known as "sleepers". Guess who makes them? Normal pharmaceutical companies! And these aren't later-generation sleepers, like the drugs that killed Sophie Ivanova, they're first generation. They poison you right away! They even sicken any telepaths who come in _contact_ with you!

  1. A company called Holotech started making them in 2117. A telepath named Mercy decides to take the injection, so she can keep her job. "Mercy came back the next day like a dead woman. When Blood tried to touch her mind, she had to run for the toilet, and there she vomited for half an hour. Mercy curled on the couch, her normally lively eyes blank. She watched the vid with only sluggish interest. Tentatively, Blood scanned her again. She was reminded of Novocain, and also of heroin. It was as if Mercy only _remembered_ being alive." ( _Dark_ Genesis, p. 58-59) Consequences? _**Haha! Hell no!**_ The Earth Alliance literally created this concept in the first place, and forced newly registered telepaths into a choice - if you don't take these drugs, you can't keep your job. (Of course, if you do take them, you're too sick to keep your job!) Poisoning telepaths isn't illegal - it's legally condoned, even _**mandated!**_
  2. By 2188, the drugs are manufactured by a pharmaceutical company called Waters Corporation, but it's also implied that this isn't the only company that makes them. The formula also isn't much better. "No one who met one of the zombies the antitelepathy drug eventually produced could really imagine it was a legitimate option. Yet it was manufactured by the ton, wasn't it? Normals watched their neighbors take the injection twice a week, without blinking." ( _Dark Genesis_ , p. 229)
  3. The only thing that changes over the years is the speed at which the drugs poison and kill. This is how Ivanova's mother really died, not because of anything the Corps did. (See [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14055426), [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14056377) and [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14042739).)
  4. Later on, the drugs are manufactured by Edgars' Pharmaceuticals, based on Mars: “A little more interesting was a profile of William Edgars, an up-and-coming billionaire in the pharmaceutical industry. Edgars was one of the contractors who produced sleepers, so anything concerning him was of interest. The article was typical Fortune 500 stuff, though - hobbies, carefully chosen political views, photos with the dog. When asked about business teeps, he seemed to avoid the question, an interesting thing in and of itself.” ( _Deadly Relations_ , p. 196-197). We come back to him later.



The important point is that there is no way to calculate how many telepaths normals murdered with these drugs over those 150 years. But it's a large number. Consequences? Until Bester kills Edgars - to stop a full-fledged genocide plot - _**no, nothing. It's all legal! And they make a profit.**_

Returning to violent assaults against telepaths...

2203:

  1. The first time Bester leaves campus (at age fifteen) to join his former cadremates on a hike, [he is beaten up by a normal](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10358895/chapters/22887570) who spots the telepaths and picks a fight, simply because of what they represent. ( _Deadly Relations_ , p. 48-50 and _Final Reckoning_ , p. 243) Consequences? _**Of course not.**_
  2. The next day, when Bester decides to run away chasing rogue telepaths to Paris, he tries to report the rogues to the train cop, who _also_ assaults him: "Without that thought, what he sensed next might have come too late. As it was, everything clicked at once, and he hurled himself to the side, crashing into the bulkhead, as a shock stick crackled through the space he had just occupied. This time, his first reaction wasn't fear, but anger. Mauled by two normals in as many days? _No._ The train cop lifted the shock stick for another try." ( _Deadly Relations_ , p. 58) This time, unlike the day before when Bester just curled up into a ball on the ground, he telepathically stuns the guard in self-defense. Consequences for the normal for assaulting him (or frankly, for working with the rogue telepaths in the first place)? _**Nope - he refused to be scanned**_ , which is his absolute right as a normal. So he gets away with it, and Bester gets in trouble for assaulting _him_ (and tying him up to stop him from warning the rogue telepath).
  3. Then a girl named Fatima Cristoban [runs away from school](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22900864). Within two days, she's trafficked by normals, [raped, and beaten to death](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22921732). ( _Deadly Relations_ , p. 100-104) Consequences? _**The guy who "purchased" her, raped her and killed her is arrested! The only time a normal who hurts telepaths is ever arrested in canon!**_ But not so fast. Sandoval Bey had to break the rules to find Fatima - he scanned the woman who ran the trafficking ring - so none of the evidence is likely to make to court ("exclusionary rule"), he'll probably get off, and the _trafficker_ will probably have a case against the _Corps_.
  4. Fatima's fate isn't even an aberration for telepaths who run away from school. "Most runaways like Ms. Cristoban don't find the underground," Bey explains. "They find people like Saskia Grijs [the trafficker]." ( _Deadly Relations_ , p. 102) Bey's seen this before, _over and over_. Why? Because telepath youth fetch high prices on the black market. Because _**the law lets normals get away with it.**_



Then there's Director Johnston, who replaced Vacit (secretly a telepath) as director of Psi Corps. The Psi Corps charter mandates that the director has to be a normal - because God forbid telepaths are in charge! They'd _take over the government!_ The Corps was created to _stop that._ It's supposed to be a "clearinghouse" for telepaths (JMS’ own words, July 17, 1994, as quoted on a card in the collectable card game), controlled from the top by normals. Except Vacit was a telepath all along, and he was director for about forty-six years (and the Corps never "took over the world" - shocking!).

  1. Johnston, though, comes in and "cleans house", by which I mean he fires, exiles, or murders every telepath who had ties to Vacit or who challenges his power in any way, including Sandoval Bey, Natasha Alexander (Lyta's grandmother), and just about everyone Bester grew up with. He also tries to kill Bester several times.
  2. Years later, he also is involved in the plot to sell telepath prisoners to the Shadows as "weapons components". ( _Ship of Tears_ ) Consequences? _**Of course not**_ \- he's the director of Psi Corps, and he serves for life at the discretion of the Earth Alliance Senate. He faces no consequences till Bester assassinates him.



After the Earth-Minbari War...

  1. In November 2250, after the Earth-Minbari War, with Earth's infrastructure in ruins, the EA Senate cut off food shipments to Mars, over the objection of the president. The Corps, legally bound to remain neutral in matters of normal politics, continued to run food shipments to Mars for their own population, though some food aid was also distributed to normals. (“The Psi Corps and You!” /Babylon 5 #11/) Normals responded to the food shortages with planet-wide riots from January to April of the following year, angry that Earth was giving priority to its own population at the cost of the colony, and believing Earth was punishing Mars for declaring neutrality in the war with the Minbari. Rioters especially targeted telepaths, who they perceived as "unfairly" and "selfishly" having food that "should have gone to them." ( _Deadly Relations_ , p. 192-193)
  2. In 2249, Susan Ivanova, then a young officer, [tossed a telepath out a third story window on Io station](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10507632). The telepath survived only by chance. Court martial? _**Hell no!**_ Her superiors covered for her. John Sheridan even refers to this incident in a _joking tone_ in _A Spider in the Web_ , as if the audience is supposed to laugh along. Attempted murder! How funny! (It's not like telepaths are people or anything, and not like there's any long history of normals killing telepaths! Nah.)
  3. At some point in the early 2250s, a miner on Mars picks a fight with Bester and his Psi Cop intern, Ysidra Tapia. [She throws a knife at Ysidra](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10903194) \- Bester pushes Ysidra out of the way far enough to keep the knife from going through her head or chest, but it almost cuts off her arm. Normal justice? Hell no - Bester has to kick the miner's ass himself. ( _Deadly Relations_ , p. 193-194) This happens on Mars, so as he tells the other normals in the train station - who were an inch away from attacking him themselves - he can fight back without getting into trouble with the law _himself_ for using telepathic force against normals. As the book says earlier when Bester faces the train cop, using telepathy in self-defense is _illegal_. "He probably had already [broken a regulation] - pushing a normal even in self-defense." ( _Deadly Relations_ , p. 59) _**Oh look how the rules are written NOT to protect telepaths from normals, but always the other way around!**_ If normals sometimes kill them and get away with it, well, it's just the price we pay for a "fair society", no?
  4. Also in the early 2250s, the Corps sends Bester to a far-off colony called "Beta", to track down a normal serial killer who is torturing and killing telepaths. He's already killed six. (Johnston had Bester sent there so he could try again to kill him again, making it look like the serial killer did it, but fails.) As Bester investigates the real murderer, he realizes that the normal police are covering for the killer, because they "[think] our man is doing a fine job, ridding the planet of teeps" _(Deadly Relations_ , p. 219). The whole colony had in fact been formed by "Adamites/Adamists", normals who hate telepaths so much, they flew off into deep space to be absolutely sure there were no telepaths around, but then newcomers to the colony changed the rules and allowed business telepaths to move in, leading to much resentment. The normal cops are "in on it" and the local Psi Cops are too scared to do anything - he already killed two Psi Cops, and no one has the guts Bester has - so he's called in to deal with it. And so he does, because, as Lyta admits, "we did what we had to, because no one else would." ( _Face of the Enemy_ ) It's break the normals' "rules" and scan people, or _telepaths die_. And when they find the killer, it's vigilante justice, or _nothing_. "Nothing" means more innocent men and women tortured and killed - Bester finds the victim naked, her eyes gouged out, mouth sewn up, ears plugged with fast-hardening epoxy, having been asphyxiated (nose pinched shut) and hung from the ceiling by her arms, in her own home. ( _Deadly Relations_ , p. 217-218)
  5. And this serial killer is no aberration. "I've looked at the reports on the other victims. At first I thought we had something fairly typical here - the victim forced to look through the eyes of the killer as the deed is done. I worked a case in Buenos Aires like that. Every mundane psycho who comes up with it thinks he's the Thomas Edison of serial killings, when in fact it's so _obvious_." ( _Deadly Relations_ , p. 221) He explains this "typical" MO a little more a few pages back: (About suffocating them by pinching their noses shut) "Yes. Maybe he did it many times? Tortured them? Brought them nearly to death and them let them breathe, repeated the process? Deprived them of their senses so they could only see through his eyes, hear only through his ears as he was killing them?" ( _Deadly Relations_ , p. 218)
  6. The events prior to the _Icarus Expedition_ (dates inconsistent in canon): Anna Sheridan is working as a "freelance researcher" for IPX, investigating artifacts from Theta Omega 2. They hire a business telepath named Hilliard to scan an artifact they believe to be organic technology. It blows up, "turn[s] his brains to jelly," and puts every low-level telepath in a three-mile radius into a coma - in the center of Geneva! ( _Deadly Relations_ , p. 260) The center of the capital of the Earth Alliance, during the workday, has a much higher concentration of telepaths than the average population density worldwide, so it's likely hundreds of people were affected, if not more. The Corps gets into IPX stat and confiscates all the other artifacts so normals can't _intentionally_ kill/incapacitate telepaths with the technology (which has been designed for exactly this purpose by the aliens who'd made it). The Corps knew this was Anna Sheridan's lab. Did she face any consequences? _**Of course not!**_ She runs off on the _Icarus Expedition_ soon after. You'd never know from the show that she was responsible for putting what maybe hundreds of telepaths into a permanent coma. (Nor does she care, in the relevant canon book.) If the Corps hadn't confiscated the other artifacts, guess what would have happened?
  7. And then there was the conspiracy to sell telepath prisoners to the Shadows as "weapons parts", in exchange for the technology to build the hybrid Shadow ships. _Behind the Gloves_ comes back to that later. Everyone was in on _that_ \- IPX, EarthGov, EarthForce, then-Vice President Clark ( _Deadly Relations_ , p. 239), certain senators and industrialists, and Psi Corps director Johnston ( _Deadly Relations_ , p. 256-257). Even though Bester does assassinate Johnston in 2256, by that point Johnston was in his nineties and the plot was well on its way, so Bester was not able to put a dent into it. He doesn't find out the extent of what was going on until several years later ( _Ship of Tears_ ), as we cover later in the project.



And that's just the back story! Then there's what we see on-screen!

  1. _Mind War_ \- Sinclair punches Bester in the face, not because of anything he did to hurt them, but because of what he represents \- causing him to lose control of Ironheart, who kills Kelsey. _**No consequences.**_
  2. _Eyes_ \- Ivanova threatens to kill a telepath named Harriman Gray, again, not because he tried to hurt her in any way, but because of what he represents to her. It's a real threat (see above - she did attempt to kill a telepath on Io station). _**No consequences.**_
  3. _Eyes_ \- Ben-Zion punches Gray in the face, knocking him out. The normal "good guys" congratulate themselves for defeating Ben-Zion and leave, with Gray still on the floor. _**No consequences.**_
  4. _A Race Through Dark Places_ \- Franklin is running a human trafficking "pipeline" for telepaths through the station. Bester tries to stop it, and all the "good guys" rally together to stop _him_. Then when he leaves, Sheridan, uh, quietly shuts the "pipeline" down. As for Franklin, _**no consequences.**_
  5. _Dust to Dust_ \- Bester goes to the station to stop a dangerous drug dealer. Ivanova asks Sheridan's permission to kill Bester before he docks. He says no. "Can we wound him?" she asks. "Just a little?" Again, he says no - but even though she's serious, she faces _**no consequences**_.
  6. _Dust to Dust_ \- Not content with "no" for an answer, she does actually try to kill him. And she does so not because of anything he's ever done to her or to any of them (he hasn't! even if they blame him personally for everything) - but because she fears he's some kind of threat to them all, and because she hates what he represents to her. Now _disobeying a direct order_ , she orders C&C to fire up the defense grid and shoot Bester's ship out of the sky. Her subordinates comply, when Sheridan happens to walk in, and orders them to stand down. He stops her but not because _murder is wrong_ , or because _murdering a police officer is wrong_ , but because "Bester's not worth it," because he doesn't want to see her "throw away her career" (not that it hurt her the last time she tried to kill a telepath...), and because he has a "better plan". She faces _**no** **consequences for attempted murder of an Earth Alliance law enforcement officer**_ , because normals cover for their friends.
  7. _Dust to Dust_ \- Sheridan's "better plan" to "deal with" Bester is to force him to take sleeper drugs. Not only is this _assault_ , it endangers the life of the station inhabitants, by preventing him from doing his job properly (and impeding his ability to catch the drug dealer whose actions have already led to several deaths). _**No consequences.**_
  8. _Moments of Transition, The Exercise of Vital Powers, The Face of the Enemy_ \- William Edgars is back, and this time he's cooking up an evil plot to _kill or enslave ALL THE TELEPATHS!_ (Millions of people.) He has used ShadowTech to engineer a virus that he plans to release on Earth, one that will only affect telepaths, and which will be deadly unless they receive frequent injections of his "antidote" for the rest of their lives. That way, all the telepaths in the Earth Alliance will be dead, or his slaves! As he says, "President Clark isn't the real problem. He's trivial. In one way or another, he'll be gone in a few years, but the telepaths he put in power, the Psi Corps, those will be with us forever. That's the real danger. If information is power, then telepaths represent the greatest threat to freedom we've ever seen. We have to deal with that, or face the very real possibility of our own extinction. The danger before us is nothing less than the death of human liberty and human thought." Bester manipulates Garibaldi - a paranoid, teep-hating bigot even without any telepathic tweaking - to infiltrate Edgars' inner circle and find out the details of the plot, then goes in with a team to kill Edgars and stop the plot (and take the antidote in case someone tries this again). The only people other than Edgars who die are his assistant (Mr. Wade) and two guards, and Garibaldi ends up back on good terms with his friends after it's all over, but _**fuck telepaths!**_ and he vows "revenge" on Bester for this, no matter what it takes.
  9. _The Exercise of Vital Powers._ Speaking of Mr. Wade, Edgars hires a telepath named Constance to observe Garibaldi's answers to his questions. He asks Garibaldi his opinion of telepaths, telling him, "Feel free to be honest, Mr. Garibaldi. Her job is to report, not to be offended by your opinions." Garibaldi relates how much he hates telepaths and why. When he leaves, Edgars orders Mr. Wade to shoot Constance.
  10. _Endgame_ and _Rising Star_ \- Sheridan and Franklin use the incapacitated telepaths (who had been sold to the Shadows and were intercepted _en route_ in a Drakh transport) as... THEIR OWN WEAPONS! Yeah, they die, but telepaths aren't really people, anyway. They make excuses. "My God. You're using them. Using these people as if they were weapons." "Yeah. Yeah, we're using them, because they are weapons." [WTF?] "Because there are three dozen destroyers with over 1000 [normal] crew apiece, and if they can disable those ships, we risk 30 [telepath] lives to save 30,000 [normals]." "But how can you do this to them? You're a doctor." "We can't remove those implants without the resources back home on Earth." [So send them back to Earth...?] "If we don't win this war, they're dead either way." [Not necessarily!] "They're fighting for Earth, the same as we are. They just don't know they're doing it." [He literally makes this excuse.] Then Sheridan lies and says, "Using telepaths to take over ships from the other side was the hardest decision I ever made." [Bullshit.] And then makes more excuses: "I had Franklin go through their files, pick out the ones that were single, no families, who were almost certainly incurable." [So that makes their lives worth less? And how does he know who is "curable" till he gets them back to Earth? Furthermore, what are these files and how does Franklin have access to them?! He doesn't have access to Psi Corps prisoner files.]
  11. _Secrets of the Soul -_ Byron and another rogue telepath are beaten up in DownBelow simply for being telepaths. (To borrow from an [Amy Ray lyric](http://lyrics.jetmute.com/viewlyrics.php?id=1233816), "Poor man do the bidding for the rich man/those rednecks just doing what the classy fuckers thinking.")
  12. _The Corps is Mother the Corps is Father_ \- A Psi Cop intern goes alone into DownBelow and is randomly murdered. (See the lyric above.) Bester has to resort to vigilante justice again - it's not like station security is going to give a shit.
  13. _The Fall of Centauri Prime_ \- In the run-up to the Telepath War, normals now make excuses that telepaths as a whole have to be "culled", because they're not people, they're _nuclear weapons!_ (And for extra "fuck you" to telepaths, JMS has Lyta supporting this, even advocating for it.) "Well, I know one thing. This little device scares me more than anything I've ever seen. Not for what it is, but what it represents. You ever been out to see the San Diego ruins? Well, I have. The thermonuclear device used by the terrorists to blow up San Diego could be traced right back to the breakup of the Soviet Union in the late 20th century. When they fell, all of their weapons ended up with smaller governments, who didn't understand them, sure as hell couldn't build them, but were eminently willing to use them. The great thing about war is that it advances technology. Bad thing about war is that most of the technologies are destructive. And once the war is over, those weapons are still around." "Weapons like us." "Yes. Weapons like telepaths. And that thing there and anything else that may have gotten out."



Now that the Shadows have been defeated, and telepaths have "served their purpose", they're just _too dangerous_ to "leave around". (So everything we're about to do to them is both moral and necessary!)

_**In every generation, there are new excuses for murder - even attempts at extermination.** _

And then we have the Telepath War!

  1. _Behind the Gloves_ returns to this time period later, but at this point there's just one thing to say: After Bester assassinates Edgars and stops the genocide plot, Garibaldi marries Edgars' widow (his ex girlfriend), inherits billions (acquired in part from the production of sleeper drugs - a fortune made from the blood of telepaths, including Susan Ivanova's mother), and then uses this fortune to personally finance the rogue side of the Telepath War, thus directly funding the murder of tens of thousands more telepaths (counting both sides), including children, and hoping in all this bloodshed that someone would kill Bester. (Bester is not killed in the war, but huge numbers of others are.)



And even after the Telepath War, in 2272, the violence against telepaths never stopped. To return to where we began, at the trial ( _Final Reckoning_ , p. 242-243): "Thank you. As I said, once telepathy was discovered, the murder of telepaths began. It hasn't stopped. I could draw your attention to last month's case in Australia, or the one reported this week in Brazil, but there really is no need for a list of examples, is there? Each of you know it's true. To grow up telepathic is to grow up with the constant menace of death, the vague but real threat of dying at the hands of someone who doesn't even know you, only knows what you are, what you represent to them."

Actually, Mr. Bester, I think my list of examples is quite helpful!

And there's the "reality" of it, JMS. Your own facts.

There's your "tyranny."

I'm out.

/mic drop/

**Author's Note:**

> If I've missed any on-screen incidents, I will add them when I discover the omission.


End file.
